


darkling, i listen

by dollylux



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Bloodplay, M/M, New Orleans, Rough Sex, Size Difference, Size Kink, Stalking, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Underage Sex, Unsafe Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 14:51:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8494156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: “Never in all this time since you first came to me, never once have I ever looked into your eyes or heard your voice, or even thought of you, without feeling pain. It's the pain connected to loving you, to realizing my limits, and what I'll never have. Do you remember feeling my heartbeat? You'll never feel such a rhythm as you will with me. I'm your Savage Garden, and yet so tame and soft and safe!” ― Anne Rice, The Tale of the Body Thief





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [homo_pink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/homo_pink/gifts).



> For my unholy trinity: Anne, PZB, and homo-pink. <3
> 
> Title from the John Keats poem, "Ode to a Nightingale."
> 
> (Jensen is twelve.)

It's love at first sight.

The boy sees the shoes in some blink-and-miss-it shop on Decatur after dinner one evening while the sunk sank low and lazy, taking its sweet, honeyed time. He’s walking with his mother and father, the apple of their eye but trailing along behind like a half-loved puppy when he glances over, expecting to see a shop window with bead-draped mannequin breasts and Creole seasoning but instead, he sees them. The shoes.

Jared had risen the second the sun had started to dip below the low-slung buildings of the Quarter, and he’d fed quick and dirty to get it out of the way; tonight wasn’t about the hunt, wasn’t about the feed. None of his nights for the last five have been about anything but him. But his little darling with the shy eyes and the untouched, whore mouth.

He’s been watching him from the shadows half a block up, close enough to Jackson Square that the crowd is thick and hides him without much effort, and he always counts twenty steps of the boy’s precious feet before he allows himself to follow, step by careful step, behind.

He pauses when the boy does, and his eyes doing a strangely worried jump from the boy’s wine-drunk, oblivious parents continuing up the street to the boy himself, stopped right there in front of the shop window as if ordered to do so.

Fingers barely a decade old, still dainty and ballerina-boned, smudge the glass when he leans in as close as he can and stares inside. Jared watches him, rapt, his breath held, his own hand, large and ancient and steady, braced on crumbling brick.

The boy hasn’t even blinked, is just staring straight down at the shoes with a pleasure-flush on his cheeks and a slight heave to his chest: this is a secret love, an unknown part of this boy that he’s just discovering himself.

“Jensen!” comes a voice over the crowd, and Jared only hears it because he can hear the boy’s quick sip of breath, the terrified startle at being caught being naughty and thinking a bad boy’s thoughts. He turns his head, the rich honey of his hair falling careless against his pink cheek.

He hurries away after him, his worthless parents, leaving behind eight perfect fingerprints on the glass, the shoes, and his rapturous, bloody little heart.

Jared stays as still as death and watches him go, not daring to move a single muscle until Jensen, such a beautiful, strange name for a bewitching boy, is reunited with his mother and father, his soft hand taken in the cruel, impatient grip of his mother’s.

He follows when they’ve nearly disappeared into the crowd, his mind sifting through all the busy, sensory-bloated ones around him to find the most important one, the only one that matters. He dips down into Jensen’s mind in a distracted way, seeing through his eyes just enough to keep track of where he’s going. Because he wants to stop at the window, too. Wants to see what is worth the way Jensen had breathed so bedroom-low, had flushed like he might if Jared had him for a night and kept his teeth to himself and only used the rest of his powerful body.

When he gets to the window he places his fingers right over-top Jensen’s baby smudges, dwarfing them with his own doubly-large fingerprints and feel it just like a touch, like Jensen is right here. Right here.

He closes his eyes and leans into the glass, just for a moment, just the tiniest of indulgences. He’s been so good tonight, all week, really. Setting his own rules with the boy and following them, watching him until dawn starts to threaten and he has to leave, to tuck in before the sun finds him. He’s earned this small thing.

His cock stirs in his pants, a nuisance, really, such a small movement for the feeling coursing through him, for the ache that spans his entire body and all the ages of this world he’s lived, both alone and with lovers. It all comes down into a shivering, needle-point drop of unfiltered, unbridled love, obsession, if you want to be cruel, with this beautiful child.

He can still smell him here, the buttery lobster he’d had for dinner, the wine he’d sipped from his mother’s glass, the soap he’d used in the shower before they’d left the hotel, the dust and grime of New Orleans clinging beneath his fingernails, to his hair, to his soul. He can smell his most hidden parts, the parts that require the removal of the boy’s nice slacks and his bleach-white underwear, that require the spreading of an exquisite, doll-sized ass to get to his warm, pink center, the place that makes Jared’s cock ache, that makes him want to do carnal things he hasn’t in nearly a century now.

But his hips still remember the motions, his hands still remember how to hold and not to break, his mouth still remembers the close and massage motion of kissing rather than the frantic, tensed tuck of feeding. It remembers. 

He remembers.

Ah, but the shoes.

They’re perfectly witchy, his boy’s shoes, a Victorian wet dream pair of velvet boots with a five inch heel, sixteen laces, and a wicked little up-tipped, sharp point of patent leather at the toe. They belong on a woman with no gag reflex and a long list of ex-boyfriends and anonymous lovers, a woman who could strut down this trashy French Quarter street and turn heads of men and women alike. No one would ever look at Jared’s darling boy and imagine he’d want those shoes, that he aches for them with every inch of his twelve year old body.

And Jared intends for him to have them.

He goes in and buys them outright, indulges himself further by asking to see different sizes, to run his fingers over the velvet sides, the pointed toe, the spike of the heel, all while thinking of Jensen’s feet that Jared’s seen peeking out from beneath covers in the middle of the night while he sleeps, that he’s seen clean and fresh-pink from the shower, that he’s seen disappearing into socks and imagined sliding his filthy, heathen tongue between each of his sweet little toes. He selects a size seven and pays in cash, leaving the store with a flimsy plastic bag holding an offering, a gift in place of his worthless, greedy heart.

The Ackles are staying at the Hotel Monteleone on Royal, and Jared uses his preternatural speed to hurry there before the family finishes their leisurely evening stroll. A thick roll of hundred dollar bills and every bit of his Old World charm is needed to talk Emily, the kind, careful girl at the front desk, into taking the shoes into the Ackles’ suite and placing it in the center of the pillows in the boy’s room, as quick as she can.

He retreats to his perch on the roof above the barbershop across Bienville, the perfect place to see directly into the Ackles’ rooms, to see right into the room that keeps his boy, uncaring that his bespoke suit is wrinkled by sitting on broken concrete, that his Armani shoes get scratched on the climb up. He sits right on the edge of the roof and leans forward, enrapt, waiting for their return.

He doesn’t have to wait long.

Jensen retreats to his room in minutes, Jared’s soft boy who needs all the time life can afford him to be alone, to sift through all his various thoughts from the day and quiet his mind.

Jared can only watch, his still, pale heart in his throat, as Jensen undresses and readies for bed, changing into soft clothes with long sleeves that cover his small hands, make him feel safe. He’s so delicate, so painfully beautiful that Jared can’t help but gnash his teeth, but drag his tongue against the edge of a fang and slice right into the thick muscle just to taste blood right that second, even if it’s just the dull flavor of his own.

His boy spies the shoes when he goes to turn down his bed, and the way he goes still, staring at the box, makes Jared daydream for a moment that Jensen is already not human, already preserved forever in blushing porcelain, kept forever in this beautiful, small body the way a photograph captures a moment.

 _Mine_ , Jared’s heart reminds him in a fierce whisper when Jensen finally blinks, breaks his own spell, and reaches for the box. _Mine. Mine._

He stares down at the shoes for a long, long moment, one hand hovering above them like he’s afraid to touch them, to find out they’re not real. He jerks back just before his fingers light on the velvet and looks around his room frantically, eyes digging deep in the shadowed corners, looking for the source.

For Jared.

He sits down on the edge of the bed, angled toward the box, his throat working in conflicted, emotional swallows. If Jared were closer, he know he’d see the thinnest sheen of tears in those bright eyes, those daylight, living green eyes, and it makes him lean forward in almost panicked overwhelm, needing this boy so acutely _right now_ that he thinks he’ll go mad with it.

Jensen takes pity on him and pulls out one of the boots, drawing his attention away from his consuming lust and back to the moment, this precious, important moment. His small hands stroke over the soft surface, over the slick, patent toe, over the sharp stab of the heel, slow and reverent as a lover before he’s suddenly overcome, thrown into action.

The leg of his sleep pants comes up easily, revealing a long, pale line of skin that Jared’s never seen so clearly before, tantalizing in its hairlessness, in its softness, in the near-certain knowledge that no one, not even a perverted uncle or boy down the street, has touched him there. 

Tugging down the laces takes time that Jensen has no patience for, and he’s tipping his foot into the primest arch and dipping it inside the boot before he works it wide enough to take it, an eagerness Jared takes note of and appreciates all the way to the tip of his cock. He fights and pushes and pulls until his little sixth grade foot is seated fully inside, encased in perfection.

“That’s it,” Jared whispers through the still night air, not a leaf blowing in the sycamores and live oaks nearby, not a voice heard below, not by him. “That’s it, my love.”

He tugs the boot just this side of too-tight, ending it off with a bow as pretty as the ones found in little girl curls. The other boot goes on just as forcefully, no poise to it, nothing but an eager child with his secret dreams so, so close.

Jared’s boy stands up and wobbles, nearly toppling over before he catches himself on the bed, his eyes wide in the dim room. 

_Just like in Mama’s heels_ , Jared catches from his darkling little mind, like a love note. _Small steps._

He lets his pajama pants slip all the way down his thighs and off again, leaving him in a grey, long-sleeved t-shirt that touches the topmost part of his thighs. Jared catches a whimper in his throat and strains forward even closer to the edge, dangerously so.

Not like he’ll die if he falls.

He walks around the room like a high-dollar whore, shoulders back, nose lifted, full mouth tugged back in the gentlest of sneers. He finds the gilded mirror above the dresser and stares at his reflection at this newfound height, lowering his gaze into something he probably thinks is sexy, alluring, woefully unaware of his natural seduction, his inherent ability to make even the most unwilling of dicks throb by simply existing.

He slinks over to the bed and stretches out on it, head resting back against plush pillows as he spreads his thighs high and wide, showing off his department store boy briefs to an empty room. He runs an eager hand down between his legs, rubbing at his dick absently before pushing in hard to rub at his asshole through soft cotton, his whole, tiny body lifting up off the bed to get at his darling fingers. The stiletto juts of his witch boots dig into the floral duvet, keeping his knees bent and his thighs spread.

Jared ignores the restless pulse of his own dick and just watches, memorizes the way his body moves, the sluttish desperation of his massaging fingers, not daring to dip inside, just to tease. He fantasizes about stealing in through his window, about sliding right on top of him and then inside of him, filling him up too full before he finds his pulsepoint, his tender skin that would tear with heartbreaking ease, that would give like wet tissue paper under his sharp fangs, and god, how he’d taste. How he’d gasp, tense, fight back--

The boy comes apart against his own hand, the left one clasped around his own ankle, around the boot, pretending it’s someone else’s hand, forcing him to stay there, to stay spread.

Jared watches him shiver and shake and fall so soft against the bed, his legs giving out and sliding down the bed, boot-tips pointed up toward the plaster ceiling now. He’s half-asleep, fucked out and dreaming. 

The vampire stays where he is, settling in for a long night of observation, of his silent, worshipful vigil, trying to keep one single thought at bay:

The Ackles leave New Orleans in two days.

Saturday night in the French Quarter is nightmarish, a beautiful blur of debauchery, music, and the permeating scent of beer, cigarettes, and sex. Jared finds it strange, as he follows along behind the Ackles once again, that those prim, God-fearing parents of his boy allow him in such a place, to see such unfiltered depravity at such a tender age.

But there they are, edging down Bienville toward Bourbon Street, Mrs. Ackles with her baby boy’s hand clasped firmly in her lotioned one, walking in a quick, determined pace, like they’re heading somewhere. There are dozens of people between him and the Ackles, a constant shift of bodies that widens too much sometimes, makes Jared feel tense, fearful, like Jensen will get lost in the crowd and Jared will simply never see him again.

He hasn’t fed yet tonight, had been too eager to get to Monteleone, to see Jensen after he’s had a full day of unknowable adventures. He’s dressed like such a good boy tonight, in a crisp white polo shirt and dark pants that hug him too well for him to be so young.

So, so young.

A man crosses his path and draws his attention away from the pink of Jensen’s ears. He’s dressed in dark clothes and moving in darting, jerky motions, weaving through the crowd in what seems to be a great hurry. Jared presses forward with the crowd but he’s zeroed in now, sifting through the jumble of thoughts in the minds of everyone around him to find this man’s, and his alone.

_Pink cunt pink cunt gonna stick my knife in your sweet little body while I fuck you gonna put my dick in your sliced open belly and come in your burning hot guts gonna slice your goddamn throat little boy and fuck the gash--_

It’s rampant and mad, an endless stream of violence, of blood and pools and pools of come coating vital organs, bulging cocks shoved into man-made holes in Jensen’s tiny, precious body.

Jared nearly stops right there in the middle of the street.

Jensen. This man wants to do all those things to Jensen, _his_ Jensen. His special, chosen boy. _His boy._

The man is only feet away from Jensen, could reach out, if he wanted to, could grab him by the sleeve and jerk him away from his parents before they even realized. Jared charges forward, his teeth all but bared as he closes in on the man, and he’s just about to grab him right there, to wrap a hand around his throat and pull him into the shadows, finish him before he even begins, when the Ackles step in close to a building. The father’s fine hand lights on a well-polished door handle, pulling the heavy wooden door open and stepping back, the consummate southern gentleman. The mother pulls Jensen to walk in front of her as they head inside.

Galatoires is warmly lit from the outside, a welcome, nearly untouched part of old New Orleans that always makes Jared feel at home when this new world gets to be too much for him to bear. The Ackles disappear inside and are seated immediately, a still-strange sight for this place that didn’t take reservations for nearly one hundred years, that used to have lines wrapped around the block, waiting to get inside, to have a taste of real French Creole food.

Jared remembers the taste well enough from a time before Galatoires was a glimmer of a thought in Jean’s head, from his youth, from the meals his mother pieced together from the meager earnings his father made down at the docks.

New Orleans is his, in his blood, and he will never leave.

He’s welcomed into the restaurant by Paul who greets him with an indulgent, pleased smile, and he’s lead through the restaurant to a small table only three away from the Ackles. He takes his seat without complaint, smiling until Paul disappears back to the front, but it disappears under a shatter-thin layer of quiet panic as his eyes dart around for the man outside, the man who could get to his boy before he does himself.

Jensen Ackles is less than ten feet away from him, the scent of his soft, pink skin rising up above the spice and savor of the food on fine white plates and seeping into Jared’s nostrils, into his old, eternal bones. Jared closes his eyes, hands unmoving in his lap, and just breathes.

He orders a glass of bordeaux when prompted and holds onto the glass with his finely boned, long fingers that could shatter the crystal with just the thought of pressure. The restaurant is filling up quickly as the night deepens outside, the rise and fall of conversation all but drowning out the small, precious droplets of Jensen’s quiet voice.

Jared must drift, must get enrapt in the sounds and movements of humanity like he is wont to do at times, especially when he’s hungry and aching with a loneliness more profound than he ever thought he could bear, because when he looks over at the Ackles’ table, Jensen is nowhere to be found.

A very human fear seizes him, unfounded and dramatic, and he can’t do anything but stare in horror at the empty seat for all of ten seconds before he realizes he can still smell him, that the scent of him is closer somehow, that--

A flash of dark honey and secret pink nears him, coming so close that Jared nearly runs, leaps up from the table and scurries out into the night like the creature he is, like the unworthy, ghastly murderer he is, but Jensen doesn’t stop when he gets to Jared’s table.

He walks right on, heading to the back of the restaurant where the restrooms are, and Jared realizes too late that Jensen’s arm had brushed his shoulder, that if he closes his eyes and focuses all his attention, he can still feel the hint of his warmth bleeding into the black wool of his tailored jacket.

A sound starts to build in him, starting low in his chest and moving up to the hollow of his throat and finally the top, just at the back of his tongue, and what wants to escape is not a growl, not even a scream, but a whimper.

He sets the untouched glass of wine down on the bone white linen tablecloth and stands up, keeping his movements slow and imperfect, not wanting to alarm anyone or make them aware of how very unlike them he is, not here, not tonight.

The door to the men’s bathroom is just sliding closed when he nears it, his nostrils flaring for the scent on the air, familiar and drawing out the predator in him:

The man from outside is here. In there, with Jensen.

He abandons all pretense of humanity and rushes into the bathroom, inside and at the small line of sinks before the door even begins to close behind him. He’s there, the man from outside, the child defiler and killer with a beautiful collection of little fingers on a shelf in his closet back in his hovel on the edge of the Quarter, a man with a taste for young blood and untouched orifices and the feel of tiny wrists under his big, rough hands.

All things Jared appreciates, all things he craves himself, but this is different. Jensen is different. And he is not for this foul creature.

He’s large, nearly as tall as Jared and broader all over, his hair a silvered, dark grey that gives him an almost academic air, an attractive philosophy professor, perhaps. His large brown eyes lift in the mirror to find Jared standing there behind him where he needlessly washes his hands in the sink, and the focus in Jared’s expression makes him stop all movement, big hands still under the hot water.

Jared can hear Jensen in the stall behind him, the tinkly sound of him pissing, the rustle of his clothing, the smell of his sweet young body permeating the entire room. He takes a deep breath to scent him on the air, indulging himself even as he steps forward and into the man’s space.

“Leave,” he says next to his ear, keeping his voice low, too quiet for Jensen to overhear. “Right now. And I may let you live.”

He can hear the manic swirl of the man’s thoughts, most of them centered around someone separating him from his prey, keeping him from his intended, and it builds and builds in him until he sucks in a sharp breath and comes to life again, reaching up to turn off the water that’s steaming up the mirror.

A achingly tiny gasp goes up behind Jared, and one glance in the mirror informs him that the stall door is open and Jensen is standing just outside of it, frozen, babydoll green eyes wide with sudden fear.

It’s confusing, why Jensen is afraid, what’s startled him, until he sees the knife in the man’s hand, glinting in the mirror before he ducks past Jared and goes right for Jensen, one arm going around his waist while the other tucks the knife right up against his throat, pressing in so hard that Jensen cries out.

“ _You_ leave,” the man says, pulling Jensen toward back toward the door, his eyes shining bright with triumph as he grins at Jared. “And I won’t cut his pretty cunt throat right here.”

The smell of Jensen’s fear is exquisite, a splash of red in the bone-white of the freshly cleaned bathroom, his beautiful eyes filled with tears, staring unblinking and imploring at Jared.

 _My love_ , Jared’s entire soul sighs, a pain more exquisite than dying taking him over, pulling a tight shiver out of his body and a protectiveness unparalleled in the known universe. He braces himself, rips his eyes away from Jensen’s, and moves.

He grabs for the knife first, pushing his fingers between the blade and Jensen’s tender skin before the man can apply any more pressure. He feels the sensation of being cut, of the knife slicing through layers of skin and starting in on bone, but the knife is in his hand now and being thrown across the room, sliding under the sinks.

He closes his bleeding hand around the man’s neck, squeezing hard enough to crush his windpipe like a plastic bottle as he shoves him back against the tile, cracking it with the man’s skull.

The man wheezes as he fights to suck in air, his vocal cords severed under Jared’s immeasurably strong grip. The sounds he lets out are blurred and gargled, the sounds of the deaf and the dying. He stares right into his bulging eyes as his face gets more and more red, and he lifts him up off the ground, his feet dangling ineffectually above the tiled floor.

A small hand closes around his wrist, gentle and shaking.

“Please,” Jensen whispers, the sound of his voice so soft, just as sweet as Jared imagined it would be. “Don’t… don’t kill him.”

Jared turns to him, slow like a dream, like he’s submerged under dark, warm water. Jensen is a full foot shorter than him, maybe even more, and his eyes are filled with the bright glimmer of tears as he tightens his hand on Jared’s arm, just above his hand. There’s the tiniest cut on his throat, nothing more than a knick, but the smell of his blood overpowers everything else happening, every other sensation.

“Are you unharmed?” Jared says to him, unsure of his voice, uncharacteristically self-conscious about its timbre, about his old, broad Creole accent. 

“Y-Yeah,” Jensen says, his chin trembling, a second hand coming up next to the first, further up Jared’s arm. Squeezing. Begging. “Please. Please don’t.”

_Imagine a boy who’s barely bloomed, hardly more than ten years on in this world, holding sway over you, a terror of the night, the thing to be feared, hardened by centuries of nothing but stolen lives and blood and blood and blood. Are you truly so weak?_

“Go back to your parents,” he manages to say, an imagined heat starting low in his belly, lit by the sharp hunger in him, by his powerful, insatiable attraction to this boy. His _need_ of him. “Do not speak of this.”

Jensen sucks in a breath, a pitiful hitch of a sob.

“But--”

“Go!” Jared bares his teeth at him, a flash of twin points sharpened into weapons, and the horror that overtakes Jensen’s perfect face shatters Jared’s unused, ancient heart. The feather-soft grip of Jensen’s hands leave him and he’s gone, the door clattering shut behind him.

Jared closes his eyes and lowers his head, teeth gritted hard enough to grind bone in his mouth as a very old, dormant despair takes him over.

If he could recall how to cry, he would.

A throat works under the stone grip of his other hand, under his already healed fingers, and the man closes his hands around Jared’s arm in his last attempt to fight him. Jared lets him go completely, stepping back to let the man clatter to the ground like a cut marionette.

He stares down at him in a rage so absolute that he can’t move for a moment.

The man is heavy and malleable when Jared lifts him again, tugging the man’s jacket closed to hide the stain of his own blood around his neck. He’s breathing but just barely, a slow, weak whistle of noise as his heart thumps sluggishly in his broad chest.

This man was going to murder Jared’s sweet boy tonight. He was going to eviscerate him and rape the wounds and lovingly cut off all ten of his fingers to put in a readied jar. He was going to cut off a lock of his hair to braid and keep in his wallet, was going to toss his beautiful body into a swamp a hundred miles away and let the murky, churning waters claim him, keep him forever.

Jared feels drunk already with what he’s about to do.

The walk through the restaurant is simple, the man a dead weight at his side as he adopts the look of a man helping his drunken friend get home safely. He can feel Jensen’s eyes on him across the room, can still smell his fear, but he doesn’t dare look, doesn’t want to be distracted by him. Not yet.

The alley beside the restaurant is as dark as any in the French Quarter, the sickeningly sweet smell of garbage and decaying animal flesh invades his nostrils as he pushes the man back against the tired brick, yanks his head back by his thick hair, and sinks his teeth into his throat like a dog, biting down and ripping it open.

A hot spray of blood hits him in the face, and he moans, heated and broken. He spits out chunks of flesh and torn trachea before he closes in and seals his mouth over the gush of blood, drinking it down in thick, lustful gulps. 

The man’s life comes to him in flashes as he feeds, as his weak hands clutch and fight at Jared’s chest: a sickly mother covered in bruises making watery soup in a tiny, dark kitchen, the smell of beer and sweat and piss from the living room where his father haunted, fat and hateful and prone to bouts of violence, unknowingly creating and sharpening the mind of a baby killer; death, so much death, sweet, drawn-out death on ripped up bodies too small for regular coffins; the taste of young flesh torn from little boys and girls who were still alive, whose ability to feel the kind of pain being inflicted on them had been dampened by days and days of unknowable torture.

Jared growls, presses in tighter, and sucks harder, eager to bring about his death, to be the cause of it. He lets go just before the heart stops, drawing back with a ragged, heaving groan. The man is quiet now, unmoving, but his heart still pulses on, fighting to keep this wretched man alive.

He lifts him with one hand and tosses him into the dumpster, listening to him land on bags of refuse, and then quiet. He’s teeming with life now, all but trembling with it, his face flush and warm under the drip of blood covering it. He takes his scarf off and wipes his face and his hands clean before tossing it in after the dying man and closing the lid of the dumpster once again.

He buttons his coat all the way up and walks calmly out of the alleyway and back to the restaurant, weaving his way through to the bathroom again where he cleans up more thoroughly, making sure he looks presentable. He locates the knife and bends it in half, wrapping it in paper towels and tucking it into the trashcan.

His table is still waiting for him when he emerges again, and when he takes his seat and lifts his glass again to breathe in the rotten fruit scent of the wine, he finally looks up and locks eyes with Jensen. 

The boy is staring right at him, his face drained completely of color, all the questions in his mind overlapping and fearful, but there’s one question he’s no longer asking himself:

_Did he kill him?_

He knows somehow, can tell. Maybe by the sated look on Jared’s face, maybe the pink flush of his cheeks, maybe some inherent knowledge that Jared would never let anyone who intended Jensen even the vaguest of harm live.

Jared stays for the rest of Jensen’s meal, watching him eat with the kind of lust humans reserve for sex, keeping watch over him in case any other monsters of New Orleans have fallen in love with his boy.

He makes sure Jensen sees him leaving when they leave, makes sure to stay only a few feet behind them, closer than he usually allows himself, close enough to smell him.

God. The smell of him.

He stops just outside the hotel, not disappearing into the shadows until Jensen turns to look at him, sees where he is. Jared falls back, leaning against the wall of the furniture store across the street, and lets Jensen go into the golden wash of the hotel lobby.

The night falls and passes in a warm drag, and Jared doesn’t know how long he waits there in the darkness, still as death, his eyes trained eternally on the gilded doors of the Hotel Monteleone.

It’s well after midnight when there’s movement at the door, when it opens and a silhouette becomes enshrouded in the shadow of the dark street as it steps outside. 

Jensen. 

Jared lets the boy come to him, lets him cross the narrow street and step into his space, and it feels painfully like acceptance, like an invitation into some tiny slip of Jensen’s life.

Like being trusted.

They don’t speak for a long time, just tuck in close to each other as Jensen stares up and up at Jared. He’s got a backpack and is wearing a jacket, smelling like the expensive soaps and lotions of the pampered. 

Jared is crushingly, irrevocably, in love with him.

“Are you alright?” he asks, echoing his earlier question to him, but his voice is infinitely softer now. He doesn’t dare touch him, doesn’t want to leave even the thought of a bruise on him. It’s a novel feeling, this kind of care for another. He finds it as fascinating as he does excruciating. 

Jensen nods, his youth in the speed of the movement, in how readily he shares with a man he knows is a killer. Jared echoes the nod with his own, hesitating in what is already a made decision.

“Follow me,” he says quietly.

He doesn’t wait for a reply, for Jensen to even process what he said. He pushes away from the wall and starts down the street still full of people, some lively, some silent, in their own thoughts. Jared can feel Jensen behind him, the conflict racing through him before he rushes after Jared, his feet hitting the pavement in soft thuds before he slows down right at Jared’s side, so close.

Too close.

“Did you know him?” Jensen asks, having to walk quickly to keep up with Jared’s long legs. Jared shoves his hands into his pockets and balls them up into fists, letting his nails pierce the beds of his palms to ground him. He shakes his head as he leads them down Royal, deeper into the Quarter.

“How did you know what he was going to do? I… I heard you talking before. I heard--” Jensen cuts himself off, falls quiet, strangely self-conscious, maybe at the thought that somebody was protecting him. “...I heard you tell him to leave.”

“You weren’t supposed to hear that,” Jared replies, frowning at a man walking toward them, silently warning him not to even glance at the boy at his side. “Get on the other side of me.”

Jensen wants to ask why, Jared can hear it in his silence, but he obeys, moving to the inside of the sidewalk, closer to the buildings than the street. 

“I think he’s been following me,” Jensen tells him, speaking softer this time. “I’ve seen him a few times this week. I saw him looking at me one time, on a streetcar. He… it freaked me out.”

Jensen moves in closer to Jared, all but leaning into him, and Jared has no choice but to remove his hand from his pocket and wrap an arm around him, tucking him in close. Safe.

It feels so good that Jared nearly sighs.

“I think he’s been in my hotel room,” the boy continues, so quiet that only Jared could possibly hear him. “Last night when we got home, I found… there were, um. These… these boots that I’d been looking at, at a shop near the river. They were there. On my bed.”

Jared’s hit with a flood of embarrassment, feeling caught, like someone had found his dripping, unsent love letters. He doesn’t reply, doesn’t say anything for a long while. He closes his hand around Jensen’s narrow shoulder and keeps him close, daring anyone else, anything else, to try and touch him tonight.

His house is on St. Ann’s near Burgundy where he has been for nearly two centuries, tucked safe in a Creole townhouse of dark grey and white trim, a cast-iron balcony overflowing with luscious plants and a front door painted flat, matte black, a nonverbal communication to Stay Away.

Jensen doesn’t speak as Jared unlocks the door and steps inside, turning on lights that he’d been in too much of a hurry to tend to earlier this evening. The inside is as garish as one might expect, full of dark wood and priceless paintings that he’s collected from around the world, an innocent, bloodless hunt.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any food,” Jared says, placing his keys in the bowl by the door and hanging his jacket on the coat rack. “Would you like some water?”

He turns to Jensen and watches his eyes widen, his pupils taking over the green until there’s nothing but fear on his beautiful face. Jared glances down at himself and nearly sighs at the blunder: his suit is ruined, stained forever with that monster’s dried blood.

Jensen stays where he is, planted on the dark Turkish rug, his eyes unblinking. Jared feels the moment teetering, waiting for Jensen’s fate to be decided, and it surprises Jared completely when Jensen steps forward instead of retreating, when he comes in close again and stares right up at Jared, heavy backpack pulling his small shoulders back.

He’s so young, so breakably little, but his command over Jared is absolute.

His eyes all but order Jared to his knees, and Jared goes as if entranced, not stopping until he’s looking up at Jensen, knowing and not caring how submissive he looks.

“You killed him,” Jensen whispers. “For me.”

A hand half the size of Jared’s own comes to rest on his cheek, cupping it like he’s something sweet, something kind, something deserving of softness. He closes his eyes and tilts his head, leaning into it very, very slightly. Jensen’s precious thumb runs along the cut of his cheek and down the side of his mouth, and he doesn’t stop him when Jensen touches the seam of mouth and pulls up on his top lip, revealing the dangerous point of one of his fangs.

“I would slay anyone who dared to glance at you,” he says, lashes against his cheeks, all but nuzzling into Jensen’s palm. “Anyone.”

“Did you drink his blood?” There’s a warmth to the words, something coy in them, and the question makes Jared open his eyes again, seeking Jensen’s gaze and finding it readily.

“I ripped his throat open and drained him of every last drop,” he replies, finding no reason to lie to him now, not when he’s all but embracing Jared for the knowledge that he murdered someone. 

“For me,” Jensen repeats, seeking confirmation.

“For you,” Jared promises, quaking in some intangible place even as his hands, large and steady as time, slide up to cup the impossible smallness of Jensen’s hips, fingers spreading out to span as far as he can.

Jensen curls down, drawing Jared up so that their faces can touch, their mouths ghosting, savoring the second before their first kiss. Jared tightens his grip on his waist, drawing him in close as Jensen fumbles his way around Jared’s mouth, so desperately wanting _something_ and not sure how to go about getting it.

He feels Jensen’s hot little tongue pushing at his lips, wet and obscenely wanton in its greed. Jared opens his mouth and stays still, letting Jensen inside, letting him do whatever it is he came here to do.

Jensen’s tongue slips inside and heads right for one of Jared’s fangs, not hesitating for a second as it pushes in and drags down the side, slicing clean into the pink muscle and drawing an immediate pool of blood to the surface.

Jared groans like a gut-shot, his knees spreading on the rug as he pulls him in hard, forcing Jensen to straddle his immovable body. He sucks on Jensen’s tongue with unprecedented hunger, swallowing mouthful after mouthful of precious, rich, salty blood, full of the spices of his city, of Jensen’s heartbreaking youth, of his shockingly dark, secret wants.

_I’ve dreamt of you my whole life._

“Take me upstairs,” Jensen says on a sigh against his mouth, his lips stained bright with his own blood, cheeks flushed with even more. Jared lifts him up onto his body, in love with his child’s weight and his spoiled-boy expectation to get exactly what he wants.

Jared would give him the bloody, still-beating heart of the world, if Jensen wished it.

It’s dark upstairs, the bedroom flooded with moonlight and nothing more, and the velvet-draped canopy bed sighs under their combined weight as Jared first lowers Jensen down and then finds a home in the easy spread of his young thighs.

The backpack got tossed aside somewhere between the doorway and here, and Jensen’s clothes go with the same amount of indifference. He’s shivering and pale, bathed in moonlight and completely bare against the deep red damask duvet, his eyes sweet and secret as a bride as he stretches out for Jared and lets him look.

There’s not a single mark on his beautiful, thin body, not even a bruise from Jared’s harried, monstrous hands. He’s kissed with freckles all the way down to the hairless pink between his legs, and Jared’s mouth seeks every single one of them. He rests Jensen’s legs on his shoulders and sucks bruises onto his inner thighs, giving his little cock a few teasing licks before he moves down where they both want him to be.

Jensen’s asshole is so tiny that Jared growls, a soft rumble deep in his chest. It’s the pink of little girls’ cheeks, of sugary sweet candy in store windows, of the painted-on lips of porcelain dolls like his sister had, long ago. He rests flat against the bed, tucks his face in and breathes, drinking down the secret scent of him to keep forever, this living, perfect boy giving him this without a single thought of reservation. 

Jared licks into him with the impatience of a mortal man, hands pushing at his cheeks so they’re flat, so he can get in close and push his tongue deep. Jensen is a writhing, trembling mess above him, shaky hands pushing into Jared’s hair and pulling on it hard, anchoring himself as he rocks down on Jared’s tongue.

He tastes like the first rush of blood, bright and metallic, a red so deep it’s nearly purple. He’s so tight that if Jared were a good man, he would be worried, think it would be impossible. But the demon he relishes the challenge, never minds a little red in his pink.

He sucks on Jensen’s asshole like it’s a wound, like he’s drinking from it, letting the lethal edges of his fangs graze the pushed-out pink of it, making Jensen sob above him, straining down like he wants it.

 _One day_ , Jared promises silently as he lifts up, licking the taste of Jensen’s cunt off his lips as he strips himself down, ripping fabric as he goes, _one day I’ll sink my teeth in and slice you open, make you bleed between your legs for me like a girl._

He stretches out and plucks the small brown bottle of rose oil that he gets from the apothecary in Bayou St. John from the table by the bed, and he’s just twisted the lid off when Jensen speaks.

“You got the shoes for me,” he says, darling hands running up and down Jared’s strong, still hairy thighs. “Didn’t you?”

Jared settles down on his haunches and stares at him in wonder, and his expression must give him away because Jensen smiles.

“I love them. I put them on last night, when we got home. I--”

“I saw you,” Jared tells him, letting the oil drip into his palm, pooling in the cup of it so he can coat his cock with it as he stares down at his boy. “I watched you, through your window. I saw you on the bed.”

He drips a line of oil across his fingers before feeding them into Jensen’s body, sliding the length of two of them all the way inside. Jensen gasps like he’s been cracked open, his body thrumming and fluttering around Jared’s fingers, so burning hot inside, so intensely _alive_. 

No one has ever been here. No one has touched him here before, and no one ever will. None but Jared.

Jensen tips his hips down, angling Jared’s fingers up inside of him to get at that good spot, one that his dirty little boy had already found for himself on his own sweet fingertips. 

“You watched me,” Jensen whispers, grinding against Jared’s palm, on the full length of his fingers that Jared kneads his insides with. His face is flushed, his mouth damp, long lashes draped over his freckled cheeks. “You knew what I wanted.”

Jared rubs over Jensen’s hole with the runny, burning tip of his cock, feeling it catch on the rim of it like a key sliding into a lock. Jensen gasps, tensing up all over as his eyes fly open wide, staring at Jared in beautifully pained fear.

“This,” Jared grits out, clamping one hand down on Jensen’s narrow hip, giving him his first bruise. “This is what you wanted.”

He forces his way in, not letting the terrified clutch of Jensen’s body deter him, or his gasping, punched-out sob, or the hard press of his fingernails into Jared’s forearms.

Twelve years old, and he takes ten inches beautifully.

“That’s it,” Jared sighs, rocking down against him until Jensen has no choice but to give up the last inch, letting him root all the way inside and hold him open wide. He relaxes down against him, shivering for the way Jensen’s asshole spasms, for the scent of his tears and the surprising strength in his hands as he tries to shove Jared away even as he tips his face up for make-it-better-kisses.

“Is it too much?” he asks as he smoothes Jensen’s hair back and kisses along his hairline.

“Yes,” Jensen sobs, shaky fingers tickling along Jared’s ribs before settling nearly in his armpit, clutching him there. His legs are restless, child feet sliding up and down silk sheets in his pained fits, trying to get away from the dick burrowed into his small body, but Jared cannot be moved. Will not be moved.

This child is his now, and they both know it.

“What would your mother say,” he whispers against his ear, his voice low with the contentment of being so deeply nestled, “if she could see you now? If she knew how easily you spread your legs for me? If she knew how good you were at taking my cock into your body?”

Jensen whimpers, a flood of heat spreading down his body and ending with a hard shiver. His arms lift and find themselves hugged up around Jared’s neck, his soft thighs catching on his hips as he tries to wrap his legs around Jared’s lean body.

“Don’t,” he breathes against Jared’s ear, so humiliated, so enticing, sounding exactly like _please_.

“Imagine your father in the doorway,” Jared continues, pressing his spread knees into the bed and rocking against him, inside of him, shoving in even deeper so he can pull out long, drive in hard. Jensen gasps, shocked and hurt, thighs quivering against Jared’s ribs. “Watching you. Knowing you were meant for this. For me.”

“Yes,” Jensen hitches, arms fear-tight around Jared’s neck, clinging to him as he arches hard under the heft of Jared’s body. “Y- _Yes._ ”

Jared groans, feeling like a young boy worthy of the one beneath him, like this is his first time, too. Jensen’s cunt feels like it’s wrapped around Jared’s entire body, squeezing him too tight, keeping him warm and contained. His thrusts get harder, less controlled, all the pillows falling off the bed as he slam-pushes Jensen’s tiny body up the slick silk sheets toward the carved, Victorian headboard.

“What would you do if you found out I was going to do this to another boy tomorrow night? Bring him up to this room and fuck him on this bed when it still smells like you? Make love to him until he couldn’t move anymore?”

It’s cruel, vicious and right to the bone, and the hurt little sound it pulls out of Jensen is pitch-perfect.

“No,” he whispers, his face damp when it tucks in against Jared’s neck, the smell of broken-hearted tears even as he rides down against Jared’s dick.

“No?” Jared slides a hand up to cradle the back of his head, fingers closing around thick, soft hair and yanking his head back, forcing Jensen to meet his eyes as he goes still inside of him, surrounded by the rapid surety of a young boy’s heartbeat. “You don’t want me to bring him up here?”

Jensen’s eyes are brimming with tears, his chin trembling in such an earnest way it makes Jared’s chest tighten, makes him want to call off the game and get right to the soothing, but it’s so good, too good, all the hurt in Jensen’s poor little heart making his body exquisitely tight.

“Don’t want there to be another boy,” Jensen finally says, the spoken words dragging a few tears from bright green eyes and down heated, soft skin. “There doesn’t have to be another boy. Y-You don’t need somebody else.”

“And why is that, my love?” Jared purrs like a panther with an unlocked cage, thumb stroking sweetly over the apple of Jensen’s cheek.

Jensen closes his eyes, turning his face away the slightest bit, skin warming further under Jared’s palm.

He’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.

“Because you have me,” he finally says, the last seal, the magic words, the burst open cage door. Jared yanks his head back so hard Jensen cries out in pain, exposing the pale bulge of his throat to himself, all of that vulnerable flesh covering rivers of walled-in blood.

His lips find Jensen’s neck like a kiss, and the way Jensen gasps when Jared sinks his teeth in will stay with Jared for all of eternity. Blood bubbles up to the surface immediately, and Jared seals his lips around the bite so he can suck it right into his mouth, over his tongue, feel the wash of life with an intimacy that nothing else can touch.

Thoughts and memories fly from Jensen, coming fast and unorganized as they always do when Jared feeds, but it means something this time, means more: Jensen in school, too small, too soft to play with the crass, rough boys at recess, in gym, on the soccer team his father made him join; Jensen’s pink, broken mouth after those boys got done with him in the locker room after a game, the word _faggot_ laced with it all; Jensen in his room with books, with music in headphones, quiet and alone and a lonely that shouldn’t be possible for one so young, so beautiful. And those words, again, for him:

_Waited for you my whole life._

There’s a hand in his hair and nails digging in hard on his back, and Jared doesn’t even know when he started fucking him again, how they ended up prone against the headboard, Jensen crushed between the two immovable, hard surfaces of heavy wood and Jared’s body. He ruts as he feeds, curled over Jensen’s pale neck as he rocks into his slowly-weakening body. Jensen isn’t clutching at him anymore, isn’t doing anything but spreading out and loosening up inside, his little body growing colder, moving slower.

Jared rips himself away from his neck when he hears the dangerously slow thump of Jensen’s heartbeat in his ears, telling him how perilously close the boy is to death. He’s paler than moonlight now, so sweetly prone and not fighting the thick fuck of Jared’s cock, not anymore.

They’re on the floor now, knocking against the plush, red chair near the window, Jensen’s tiny body gathered up by Jared’s hands, arranged like a heavy, barely living doll so he can hold his thin, sweet thighs and thrust up and up and _into_ his unconscious body, and when he comes it’s with a roar from the monster in him, the parts of him that are too ugly to ever show anyone else, that remind him he does not deserve this. Doesn’t deserve this boy.

Jared shakes on top of him, pulsing inside of Jensen’s torn body, one hand petting his hair back while the other soothes the bruises already starting to form on Jensen’s hip, his thigh. He kisses at the wound on his neck and up to his slack, pale mouth, licking into him and savoring the lack of resistance, of reaction.

If he were a better creature, he would cry at the tragedy of it.

He slices his own tongue on the razored side of one of his fangs and licks the blood into the bite on Jensen’s neck, feeling it heal the torn skin like magic until he’s doing nothing but lapping at the boy’s clean, damp neck.

It would be so easy, right here. So simple to slice his own wrist and press it to Jensen’s soft mouth, force the spill of his own blood past Jensen’s lips and into his body, take away his life once and for all and make him Jared’s forever, his unbreakable little doll.

Jensen shifts under him, letting out the quietest whimper like he’s dreaming.

Jared watches him in the wash of light from the window, petting him with shameful tenderness, tucking hair behind the perfect shell of an ear, feeling the tips of eyelashes against his thumb like the edge of a feather. He wants to murder him, to possess him utterly. Wants to dive into the scalding hot cavity of his body, to suck every organ dry, to bathe in his blood, to be gluttonously bloated, full of him. Wants to own this boy’s last breath. Wants to taste his final sigh.

He lifts him, instead, into his arms, cradling him like an infant and tucking him back into bed, pulling heavy, velvet covers over him and making sure his head is nestled just-so onto the softest pillow. He’s so small, the littlest bump in the corner of the massive bed, but his power is immeasurable, his affect on Jared unspeakable.

Jared stays there for the longest time, watching him sleep, at last being able to hear his deep, secret sleep sounds as he does.

He should have savored it more, his first taste of him, the first feel of him. His two virginities. Should have made sure it was special and not rushed, impatient. He should have done this right.

He sighs, bringing both hands up to rub hard at his face, smearing Jensen’s blood around his mouth as he does.

 _You’ve earned your loneliness_ ,” he tells himself as he watches Jensen sleep, memorizing and falling in love with every intake of breath, _return this boy to his parents and let him live a real, unbroken life, away from you._

“Just a moment more,” Jared whispers to his inner torment, blinking through the burn at the back of his eyes as he pets through the burnished gold of Jensen’s hair. “Just one more moment.”

\---

There’s heat burning his eyelids, seeping into his skin and drawing him up out of heavy, deep sleep.

“Jensen?” 

A knock at the door. His mother’s voice. His lashes flutter but his eyes don’t open.

He whimpers a reply, too weak to move, too tired. Why is he so tired?

The door opens and he can smell his mom’s perfume, can smell coffee brewing, breakfast in the other room. Jensen groans and pulls the covers up higher, trying to shield his face.

“Time to get up, sleepyhead,” Mrs. Ackles laughs. “You have to eat something and shower before you pack. We leave in an hour.”

“What time is it?” Jensen croaks, his throat sore like he’d been yelling. He swallows hard, throat clicking painfully.

“Almost eleven. Are you feeling alright? Do you need--”

She’s inside the room now, reaching for Jensen with a motherly hand, probably wanting to touch his forehead, check for a fever. He flinches, burrowing under the blankets further, hiding everything but the wilds of his messy hair.

“No. Don’t--I’m fine. I’m okay. Just tired. I’ll… I’ll be out in a minute.”

He can hear her, dangerous in her silence, in her unasked questions. His heart races as he hides under the covers, the night before coming back to him in feverish, exquisite flashes.

He’d been fucked, been fed upon like a feast. He’d been drained, too weak to stay conscious, to be awake when Jared came inside of him.

And he had--Jensen shivers with the ghost-feel of it, with the ache of being owned--come inside of him.

“Wait,” he gasps suddenly, sitting up in bed, the covers falling away. His mother is by the door again, turning to frown at him with increasing worry. He finds her with tearful, haunted eyes. “We’re leaving? Today?”

“Yes,” she says slowly, her frown pulling at the pretty face he’d inherited from her, his child model face. “You knew that, Jensen. Our flight leaves at three. Get out of that bed and into the shower, or so help me, I’ll send your father in here. Is that what you want?”

He shakes his head, his eyes brimming with tears at the thought of his father’s hard, cruel hands, of him finding the bruises from Jared already riddling his body.

“No, Mama,” he says softly.

“Out. Of bed,” she emphasizes, one final, terrifying look down her perfect nose and she’s gone, pulling the door closed behind her. He lets the tears fall then, exhaling the breath he’d been holding. He turns to look at the window, at the flash of buildings outside in the warm, late morning sun.

He reaches up to touch his neck, feeling the phantom sensation of ripping, of bruising, but he finds nothing there but soft, unbroken flesh. 

Maybe it hadn’t been real.

He’s out of bed in a flash, shoving the covers away and ripping off his clothes, his pajamas from the night before, looking down the line of his small body. He sighs with relief when he sees them there, the massive handprints on his hips, on his thighs, one surprising one around his slim ankle. He smiles, throat aching around a sob he will not let escape.

He runs his hands over his body as a tear slides down his cheek to his throat, pressing in hard at the bruises to make them hurt, to make them real. 

It happened. Jared is real, and last night happened. 

He reaches behind him at last, sliding fingers between his cheeks and over the raw, puffy ache of his asshole, hissing for the shocking pain of it. He feels the ache all through him then, centered low in his belly, that delicious pain of being used thoroughly.

There’s no sign of Jared here in this room, no sign that he brought Jensen back here sometime before dawn, that he’d put him back in his pajamas and tucked him into bed like a newborn. No note, no phone number anywhere, nothing. Just gone.

Jensen realizes then that he knows absolutely nothing about Jared, doesn’t know his last name, doesn’t know how old he is, exactly _what_ he is, nothing. Only knows that he’d murdered a man for Jensen, that he’d drained him nearly dry of blood last night, and had taken his virginity like it was his life’s purpose.

But.

Jensen’s eyes flash, a newfound hope blooming in his chest. He looks toward the window again as a plan starts to take shape in his racing mind.

He knows exactly where he lives.

The lobby is crowded with people checking out, and Jensen leaves his suitcase with his parents where they wait in line to return the keys.

He wanders the lobby with studied boredom, edging closer and closer to the doors with his stuffed-full backpack. He gives one final glance back at his parents, at his debutante mother and his quietly hateful father, pulls the hood of his jacket up over his head, and steps out onto Royal Street.

\---

Jared wakes to the distant chime of the church bells at St. Louis, the sound dying after the eighth one.

It’s quiet on St. Ann’s at this hour, most everyone inside, wherever they need to be, eating or drinking or fighting or fucking. He stares at the garnet canopy above the bed and takes a deep breath, soaking in all the stray, fading scents of Jensen this room has to offer.

It will break his heart every night for the rest of his life, letting that boy go.

There’s some small satisfaction in it, some dutiful martyrdom in returning Jensen to his parents relatively unharmed. There’s a dignity in the knowledge that he’d sacrificed whatever was left of his heart, whatever tiny, bloody piece of it he’d been hiding away for all these centuries, for the safety and life of a boy who owned it. To whom it belonged, utterly.

And what harm is it to anyone if Jared just laid here forever, wasting away until he’s simply too weak to move? Who would care if he never left the bed again, if the will to live went with the burnt gold of thick waves against softly flushed, freckled cheeks, with fearless green eyes that met his own, unblinking and seeing Jared down to his damned soul?

No one, that’s who.

And it’s then, in that moment, that a knock on the door sounds downstairs.

He stops breathing then, holds onto an inhale, and feels every single muscle in his body go completely still.

Silence.

Twenty-two seconds later, another knock.

 _Knock, knock… knock._ Small knuckles, unsure. Desperate.

_Jensen._

He flies from the bed like he’s been shot from it, grabbing the obscenely slinky black robe from the hook on the bathroom door and throwing it over his powerful, pale nudity and dashing down the stairs with all of the grace of a drugged buffalo.

He fights with the locks, fumbling over all five of them, and he’s nearly hissing by the time he gets the last one undone and rips the door open to the twilight of the evening, to the lavender of a New Orleans sunset, to the sight of his beautiful, perfect boy staring up at him with tears in his eyes from under the cover of a black hood.

“Can I… come in?” he asks, timid, like he’s afraid Jared will say no.

Like Jared will deny him anything for the rest of their immortal lives.


End file.
